Browsing by Author "Odhiambo, E. S. Atieno"

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    A political history of higher education in East Africa: The rise and fall of the University of East Africa, 1937--1970
    (2004) Mngomezulu, Bhekithemba Richard; Odhiambo, E. S. Atieno
    From the 1920s Britain started formulating educational policies for its African colonies as part of the overall imperial policy, and in response to African agitation for higher education. In 1937, the publication of the De la Warr Commission Report set in motion a long drawn-out process of establishing the federal University of East Africa. Subsequently, territorial and inter-territorial tensions regarding the nature and function of the envisaged regional University emerged and continued up to independence. After independence, the spirit of nationalism and the divergent policies followed by East African nation-states exacerbated the tensions regarding the anticipated University. When the University was inaugurated in June 1963, these tensions made it inevitable that the University would split. In a sense, the University of East Africa was a stillborn entity. This study explores the tensions within the history of the University of East Africa with the view to establishing why it was established and why it disintegrated in 1970. The study analyzes these tensions at four levels: (i) the tensions which emerged between the British authorities and East African constituencies when the idea of a regional University was conceived during the colonial period; (ii) the tensions obtaining between the British government and its Governors and Directors of Education in East Africa during the 1920s and 1930s; (iii) inter-territorial tensions in East Africa before and after independence; and (iv) sustained tensions within each territory.
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    Disease, medicine, and social change among the AbaNyole of Western Kenya, 1900-1963
    (1995) Olumwullah, Osaak Amukambwa; Odhiambo, E. S. Atieno
    Bunyore, like the rest of present-day Western Province of Kenya, came under British administration as part of the Eastern Province of the Uganda Protectorate between 1890 and 1895. The argument of this thesis is that if this development drew the AbaNyole into the world capitalist nexus, it also created conditions within which an expanding nineteenth-century social field of action was confronted with new diseases and ideas about these diseases that were extremely important in the transformation of the 'Nyole medical landscape during colonialism. This transformation took place within the framework of a British colonial medical science that defined itself within and above 'Nyole cosmology, and a British racial temperament that defined Bunyore as an epidemiological landscape. Both were normal requirements for colonial self-definition, cultural positioning, and boundary-marking between 'science' and 'tradition', 'culture' and 'nature'. This is why discourses on disease and medicine during the first two decades of colonialism revolved around the idea of nature, an idea that was a rendering of not just the physical, natural characteristics, of the colony, but also of the colony's inhabitants. Based on a bifocal address and the prevalence of argument by negative contrast, the image of the 'natural' was used to not only constitute the intellectual domain within which knowledge, strategies, policies, and justifications for domination were fashioned, but also expropriate AbaNyole's capacity to narrate their own bodily experiences. This was a dual process that created fertile grounds in which ideas about Western biomedicine and its technologies were nurtured and debated by the AbaNyole. The outcome of these debates, together with contradictions within colonial medical policies, led, from the mid 1930s onwards, to the systematization of the Health Center as an arena in which a new object of knowledge, Bora Afya (Good Health), and field of intervention, the African home, were constituted. This was a transition from preventive to curative medicine, political to social medicine.
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    'For your tomorrow, we gave our today': A history of Kenya African soldiers in the Second World War
    (2004) Owino, Meshack; Odhiambo, E. S. Atieno
    During the Second World War, nearly ninety-eight thousand Kenya African soldiers were recruited by the colonial government and deployed to serve on the Allied side. This thesis is about these soldiers. It is about their experience in the Second World War, examined and told from their own perspective. Using original primary sources such as archival documents, newspapers, and oral materials, many of them collected from the askaris themselves, the thesis analyzes how askaris perceived the war, what motivated them to fight on the side of their colonial masters, how they experienced the war in various parts of the world, and what happened to them when the war ended, and they came back to the colony. The thesis demonstrates how, contrary to much that we have come to popularly associate with ordinary African soldiers who served in the Second World War, Kenya African soldiers actively tried to find their niche in the war by interpreting it in ways that made their service in it useful and meaningful. While serving in the war, Kenyan askaris were always trying to appropriate discourses about the war in ways that were relevant to their lives. Many of them understood that if they joined the war and fought with determination and commitment, they would not only survive the war, but also improve their social, economic, and political standing in their communities and the colony as a whole. The thesis demonstrates how askaris' interpretation of the war laid grounds for conflicts with the colonial regime in Kenya. Askaris served in the war with passion and commitment, believing that their service in the war would lead to a rise in their social, economic, and political welfare, but the colonial regime did not have such grand plans. While many askaris nursed high hopes for a quid pro quo from the government after the war, the government, on the other hand, was determined to maintain and safe-guard the status quo. Conflict between askaris and the colonial government was virtually inevitable. Rebuffed by the colonial regime after the war, many bitter Kenyan askaris joined the growing ranks of Kenyan people who were disenchanted with colonialism. Many of them are still bitter with the colonial government even today. They feel betrayed and taken advantage of by a government they served diligently and unflaggingly during the war. Thus the experience of Kenyan askaris in the Second World War is one that begins with hope and expectation for a better future in the colony, but ends in disappointment and resentment against the colonial regime. The experience of African soldiers in the Second World War has increasingly become a topical subject among scholars. By examining the experience of Kenyan askaris in the Second World War, this thesis expands our knowledge and understanding of the experience of ordinary African soldiers in the Second World War, while contributing to scholarship on how African soldiers generally experienced war during the colonial period.